What Causes Specific Language Impairment in Children?

Specific language impairment (SLI) is diagnosed when a child's language development is deficient for no obvious reason. For many years, there was a tendency to assume that SLI was caused by factors such as poor parenting, subtle brain damage around the time of birth, or transient hearing loss. Subsequently it became clear that these factors were far less important than genes in determining risk for SLI. A quest to find “the gene for SLI” was undertaken, but it soon became apparent that no single cause could account for all cases. Furthermore, although fascinating cases of SLI caused by a single mutation have been discovered, in most children the disorder has a more complex basis, with several genetic and environmental risk factors interacting. The clearest evidence for genetic effects has come from studies that diagnosed SLI using theoretically motivated measures of underlying cognitive deficits rather than conventional clinical criteria

Reply to Bowman et al: Building the foundations for moving mu suppression research forward

This article forms a reply to a comment on our original manuscript "Mu suppression - a good measure of the human mirror neuron system?

Mismatch Response to Polysyllabic Nonwords: A Neurophysiological Signature of Language Learning Capacity

Background: The ability to repeat polysyllabic nonwords such as ‘‘blonterstaping’’ has frequently been shown to correlate with language learning ability but it is not clear why such a correlation should exist. Three alternative explanations have been offered, stated in terms of differences in: (a) perceptual ability; (b) efficiency of phonological loop functioning; (c) preexisting vocabulary knowledge and/or articulatory skills. In the present study, we used event-related potentials to assess the contributions from these three factors to explaining individual variation in nonword repetition ability. Methodology/Principal Findings: 59 adults who were subdivided according to whether they were good or poor nonwordrepeaters participated. Electrophysiologically measured mismatch responses were recorded to changes in consonants as participants passively listened to a repeating four syllable CV-string. The consonant change could occur in one of four positions along the CV-string and we predicted that: (a) if nonword repetition depended purely on auditory discrimination ability, then reduced mismatch responses to all four consonant changes would be observed in the poor nonword-repeaters, (b) if it depended on encoding or decay of information in a capacity-limited phonological store, then a position specific decrease in mismatch response would be observed, (c) if neither cognitive capacity was involved, then the two groups of participants would provide equivalent mismatch responses. Consistent with our second hypothesis, a position specific difference located on the third syllable was observed in the late discriminative negativity (LDN) window (230–630 ms postsyllable onset). Conclusions/Significance: Our data thus confirm that people who are poorer at nonword repetition are less efficient in early processing of polysyllabic speech materials, but this impairment is not attributable to deficits in low level auditory discrimination. We conclude by discussing the significance of the observed relationship between LDN amplitude and nonword repetition ability and describe how this relatively little understood ERP component provides a biological window onto processes required for successful language learning

Qualitative aspects of developmental language impairment relate to language and literacy outcome in adulthood

Background: Developmental language disorder is a heterogeneous diagnostic category. Little research has compared the long-term outcomes of children with different subtypes of language impairment

Adult psychosocial outcomes of children with specific language impairment, pragmatic language impairment and autism

Background: The few studies that have tracked children with developmental language disorder to adulthood have found that these individuals experience considerable difficulties with psychosocial adjustment (for example, academic, vocational and social aptitude). Evidence that some children also develop autistic symptomatology over time has raised suggestions that developmental language disorder may be a high-functioning form of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is not yet clear whether these outcomes vary between individuals with different subtypes of language impairment

Categorias da motivação na aprendizagem

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Garduação em Engenharia de Produção.Trata-se de um estudo do construto motivacional no campo da psicologia e das ciências da educação. O trabalho parte da análise crítica das teorias motivacionais, principalmente no que se refere aos aspectos da dicotomia entre o carácter intrínseco e extrínseco da motivação. Os elementos associados à lógica da recompensa são analisados como impedidores da motivação. A teoria psicanalítica e o cognitivismo sustentam a hipóteses da constituição do fenômeno motivacional a partir das categorias pulsional e cognitiva. A categoria social irrompe na construção teórica como a finalidade última da motivação. Do desenvolvimento teórico resulta o quadro hipotético de categorias e fatores da motivação na aprendizagem que serve de parâmetro à pesquisa empírica. Os elementos metodológico-epistêmicos e metodológico-técnicos são discutidos à luz da visão qualitativa de investigação. Através da interpretação social dos discursos (nível de aproximação das abordagens da análise do discurso), tornou-se possível a reformulação do quadro hipotético de categorias e fatores da motivação na aprendizagem, bem como, a definição dos fatores com base na sua forma de atuação nos discurso

A longitudinal investigation of early reading and language skills in children with poor reading comprehension

Background: Poor comprehenders have difficulty comprehending connected text, despite having ageappropriate levels of reading accuracy and fluency. We used a longitudinal design to examine earlier reading and language skills in children identified as poor comprehenders in mid-childhood. Method: Two hundred and forty-two children began the study at age 5. Further assessments of language and reading skill were made at 5.5, 6, 7 and 8 years. At age 8, fifteen children met criteria for being a poor comprehender and were compared to 15 control children both concurrently and prospectively. Results: Poor comprehenders showed normal reading accuracy and fluency at all ages. Reading comprehension was poor at each time point and, notably, showed minimal increases in raw score between 6 and 8 years. Phonological skills were generally normal throughout, but mild impairments in expressive and receptive language, listening comprehension and grammatical understanding were seen at all ages. Conclusions: Children identified as poor comprehenders at 8 years showed the same reading profile throughout earlier development. Their difficulties with the non-phonological aspects of oral language were present at school entry and persisted through childhood, showing that the oral language weaknesses seen in poor comprehenders in mid-childhood are not a simple consequence of their reading comprehension impairment

Generalized models for quantifying laterality using functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound

We consider how analysis of brain lateralization using functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD) data can be brought in line with modern statistical methods typically used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Conventionally, a laterality index is computed in fTCD from the difference between the averages of each hemisphere's signal within a period of interest (POI) over a series of trials. We demonstrate use of generalized linear models (GLMs) and generalized additive models (GAM) to analyze data from individual participants in three published studies (N = 154, 73 and 31), and compare this with results from the conventional POI averaging approach, and with laterality assessed using fMRI (N = 31). The GLM approach was based on classic fMRI analysis that includes a hemodynamic response function as a predictor; the GAM approach estimated the response function from the data, including a term for time relative to epoch start (simple GAM), plus a categorical index corresponding to individual epochs (complex GAM). Individual estimates of the fTCD laterality index are similar across all methods, but error of measurement is lowest using complex GAM. Reliable identification of cases of bilateral language appears to be more accurate with complex GAM. We also show that the GAM-based approach can be used to efficiently analyze more complex designs that incorporate interactions between tasks

CATALISE: a multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study 2 of problems with language development. Phase 2. Terminology

Abstract 15 Background: Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children's language 16 problems affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the 17 second phase of a study using an online Delphi method to address these issues